Eggs are a common food item in recipes and are a regular part of people's diet. They are commonly stored in a refrigerator, as refrigeration extends the shelf life of eggs and helps to ensure that they are safe to eat. Traditionally eggs are purchased and stored in egg cartons, however, the material of these egg cartons is not optimized to protect the eggs. As such, alternative egg storage devices have been designed that are sturdier than traditional egg cartons. Many of these alternative egg storage devices are also designed to allow for eggs to be stored in a compact manner. While these alternative storage devices offer compact storage and more protection, they do not allow the eggs to be chilled when stored outside of a refrigerator. For this reason, egg trays have been designed that allow for eggs to be stored and chilled outside of a refrigerator. The bottom half of these trays are filled with water and then frozen. Eggs are then placed in the frozen mold and chilled from below. While these trays chill the eggs, they only do so from one side.
The egg chilling trays described above are often only intended for personal use as they cannot accommodate a large volume of eggs. As such, food facilities often employ alternative methods of storing and chilling eggs. These methods include storing the eggs in bins filled with ice, placing eggs in top well bins or simply storing eggs in their provided egg cartons in a refrigerator. Due to an egg's shape, many gaps are present when eggs are stored on top of one another in bins or top well containers. As a result, there is minimal surface contact between eggs and the walls of the containers and between the eggs themselves, and thus there is minimal surface area available for heat transfer to occur in order to chill the eggs. It is also less likely for the eggs stored on top to maintain correct temperatures when using these storage containers. If eggs are simply stored in their provided egg cartons, then they must be refrigerated, resulting in a constant need to retrieve eggs from refrigeration units.
Therefore it is the object of the present invention to provide an egg chiller that chills eggs more efficiently and can be compactly stored. The present invention utilizes multiple trays, each having a plurality of egg-bottom recesses and egg-top recesses, that can be stacked on top of one another. The trays are first filled with water and then allowed to freeze. Eggs are then placed within the egg-bottom recesses. The egg-top recesses ensure that the eggs are completely enclosed when the trays are stacked on top of each other. A base tray has a flat bottom provides support for the additional trays stacked on top. The stackable design of the present invention reduces the amount of space required to store eggs and increases the amount of contact surface between the eggs and ice, as the eggs stored between trays are completely enclosed. The present invention assures the proper holding temperature for raw shelled eggs and is ideal for storing and chilling eggs in food facility operations, as well as on camping trips, at festivals or any other events where a temporary cold unit is needed. The present invention can also be used to chill hard boiled eggs in addition to raw eggs.